OUR FATHER WHO GAVE HIS ONLY SON

Isaiah chapter 50 verse 7 says this;

Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.

John chapter 3 verse 1 says this;

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.

Nicodemus, was a pharisee and a teacher of Israel  and a member of a secretive conclave within the ruling council that was curious about the teachings of Jesus.

This group within the council had reasoned that Jesus must have been sent from God because He would not have been able perform such astounding miracles otherwise and so they were not willing to disregard Jesus as the rest of the ruling council had.

The conclave sent Nicodemus to ask questions of the Lord about what He was teaching.

Jesus anticipated the question that was coming and immediately cut to the chase saying;

“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

The un-asked question to Jesus was this: "The kingdom that you say that you are representing, how can we verify it so we can incorporate it in our teaching?"

Jesus' response was simply this: "The kingdom of God is beyond the reach of any person who is not born again."

Nicodemus was flustered. "How can a person be born again?", he asked. 

Jesus told him not to think in terms of the physical realm but rather in terms of the spiritual realm.

Being born again, Jesus told him, was not a repetition of emerging from a mother's womb but rather,  having ones' spirit, that was dead in sin,  come to life.

Jesus, in explaining to Nicodemus how one could be born again, spoke these famous words;

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The Son of God was given by God as a sacrifice whose death on a cross would be the payment for our sins and the ransom to free us from the kingdom of darkness and death.

This payment to cover sin could be appropriated by any person by simply believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once our sins were covered, our spirits would come to life and we would be born again. 

Once born again, the kingdom of God would be become perceptible and could then be verified in experience and  in scripture and one could thus incorporate such teachings in theology.

Up to that point in time, the price had not been paid for the sins of mankind. The Lord Jesus was still going from place to place teaching the good news of the kingdom of God and healing the sick.

Jesus was soon going to undertake the journey to the cross and Isaiah the prophet wrote the Lord's inner monologue as He braced Himself for the horrific experience of paying the penalty for all the sins of the human race by dying on the cross. 

Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.

Amen.